


In the End

by TanukiKyle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TanukiKyle/pseuds/TanukiKyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything has it's time, and it's end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykittybitch](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=spookykittybitch).



The thing is that Eridan’s desperate.

He grabs and grabs at anything he can get and at first you’d hated him for it because he was a seadweller, what could he not have, what could he not get?

But you kept talking to him, though at first you couldn’t say why you talked to this arrogant piece of half-drowned fishpoop. You used that insult on him once and he’d laughed, made a few calignous jokes but they were half-hearted. You debated it for a minute – you hated him and you’d always dreamed of a proper kismetitude. But in the end fear of your blood talked you out of it.

You wonder how he talked himself out of it, but you kept talking to him.

And the more you talk to Eridan the more you come to understand him, and how little he understands himself.  Eridan likes wizards and magic. He thinks cuttlefish are cute and Feferi is beautiful. He talks himself up into hating Vriska and being who she wants him to be but it doesn’t end well. Being anything other than yourself never ends well and that’s a tale you’ve been telling since the moment of your birth, haven’t you.

He’s so lonely.  
  
You never meet Eridan in person.  It’s too dangerous. But sometimes in the day when all sane trolls are asleep your screen is filled with purple and his is filled with gray. He doesn’t often bug you about blood colour because he’s got it all twisted up in his head and you think he likes the fact that he doesn’t have to do it with you.  Over the sweeps you watch him change. You snap at him, pick at him and beneath it all you want to scream at him in person.

“Why are you letting Vriska do this to you?”

“Feferi fell in pity with you, not this impostor?”

“Just be yourself!”

“Why won’t you let me help you?”

But in the end, you don’t say anything.

\--

The thing about Karkat Vantas is that he’s angry.

And at first you’d thought he was trolling in the more literal sense of the word because how could he be so angry all the time? You tried to be angry, to be a proper troll but you never really felt it. But what way was that for a highblood to live? Fef never seemed to be angry, and so it’d been fine with her until you met other trolls and they mocked you and you were hurt but you weren’t supposed to be. So you built yourself a shield out of capes and scarves and guns and quips.  You were jealous of Karkat, who rage seemed to come to so easily.

But you kept  talking to him, even though you didn’t know why, at first. But then one day he spews an insult at you and you laugh. You haven’t laughed in a long time. You realise then, in a moment of stunning insight which happens to you perhaps twice in your whole life that Karkat is angry like you are flirty.  You put out a few calignous feelers, keep up your attitude and he shoots them down with a rapidity that’s almost calming. He’s steady, Karkat. You can rely on him to be the same.

That’s not something you can say about your other friends. Sometimes you wonder why Karkat keeps talking to you when there’s so many better trolls out there.

You wonder if he has the same problems.

Sometimes you want to meet Karkat. Want to risk travelling far inland to where the lawnrings where he lives exist. But you don’t. Because when he’s just text on a screen – gray text which means you don’t have to expect anything from him – you can pretend he stays exactly the same, forever. Your very own pet rock. You tell him this, once. His vitriolic rants explode across your screen with comforting familiarity.

When everything changes you cling to his stability but you see him get more and more hurt, more inclusive, more sad as the sweeps pass. You want to meet him in person more than ever. Smooth his hair gently, kiss his forehead in the palest gesture you know.

 

But in the end, you do nothing.

\--

You know, deep down, that something is wrong about the angels and Eridan.

But you’re a leader and there is so much to keep an eye on. You’re determined to keep the last twelve people you’ve ever – and will ever, now – known alive. You don’t know about this game. Sollux is remarkably evasive, and Aradia who found the code to begin with…well, you don’t like talking to Aradia. Not because she’s dead – well, not directly.

When things get particularly bad you open a memo because if you don’t then you’d be double clicking cA on your chumhandles and you don’t think you’d stop.

So in the end, you don’t say anything.

\--

You know, deep down, that something is wrong with Jack and Karkat.

But you’re so busy. The angels sing at you of things best left forgotten, a cacophonous beautiful symphony of all your failures, past and present. You’re so scared. But trolls don’t get scared, they get angry. So you draw Ahab’s Crosshairs and shoot and shoot and shoot till all you smell is charred flesh and burning feathers. You need to talk to someone, anyone, but there’s nobody there for you anymore.

When things get particularly bad, you open up all your chatlogs with karkat. Pore over them, again and again, because if you click his handle you think you’d never stop.

So in the end, you don’t do anything.

\--

You didn’t think it would end like this.

\--

You didn’t think it would end like this.

\--

But in the end when you wake up

\--

With dead white eyes

\--

He’s there.

\--

And suddenly

\--

It doesn’t matter that you never said anything

\--

Never did anything

\--

Because now

\--

It

\--

Is

\--

All

\--

perfectly

0kay.

 

 


End file.
